Why are combat and waging war so tedious?

[koitnreina666]

I've been playing Civilization III lately. While it's not my absolute favorite entry in the series in terms of gameplay, I have to say that aesthetically and graphically, it's my favorite title. There's a charm to its visual style that really holds up for me.

That said, I find the combat and warfare mechanics in Civ III to be tedious and just not fun. I can't quite put my finger on why, but compared to Civ II and Civ IV, war in Civ III just feels more like a chore compared to the other titles.

Has anyone else felt the same? Are there any mods or tweaks that make combat and war more enjoyablein Civ III or is it just me that feeld thid way?

 

[Fergei]

I haven't played Civ2 this millenium but I think the answer could lie in the size of empires and militaries. Civs are so spaced out in Civ3 defaulf settings that empires are huge. I would argue needlessly enormous. Enormous empires support enormous militaries. Then each AI city is typically defended by 4+ units, so attacking just one city can be a large undertaking unless you have taken many turns to produce 20+ offensive units. The default settings, due to culture flips, also encourage total war until death of an AI rival.

I am shooting in the dark here but you could try

- turning off 'animate battles' to speed them up
- using Ctrl+X when attacking a city with your doomstack
- changing settings in the editor to increase the number of AIs by 25 to 40% per map size.
- tweaking resistence modifiers for different government types to reduce the likelihood of culture flips.

In the custom settings I use all empires are 4-12 cities in size and there is arguably a reduced risk of culture flip, so I am more comfortable with short/sharp military campaigns. If you don't like the custom governments they can be deleted.

[C3C] Thread 'Civ 3 Conquests - retuned'

Jan 18, 2021

Main objectives - overview

- Provide a more consistent challenge throughout the game (rather than the early game difficulty spike and routine late game victory often offered by the default settings).
- Make random maps more viable by reducing having to abandon a game as being unsuitable (e.g. lack of fresh water on your starting island).
- More variation in government types rather than the focus on Republic slingshot and often no further revolutions.
- Increase relevance of chariot, warrior and early game unique units for combat and delayed arrival...

• Fergei
• Replies: 23
• Forum: Civ3 - Completed Modpacks

• 

 

[WeirdoJoker]

- using Ctrl+X when attacking a city with your doomstack

Is this an automated attack function for the stack?

 

[Civinator]

If you find combat tedious compared to Civ 2 and Civ 4, in my eyes the nearest look should be into the units that are involved in such combats. In Civ 2 per example for a rifleman you have a base value for attack of 5 and a defense value of 4. In Civ 4 you have a base value of 14 for attack and defense. In Civ 3 for a rifleman you have a base value in attack of 3 (edit: in the Civ 3 manual and in the game an attack of 4) and in defense of 6, meaning the attack of those units in Civ 3 is much more handicaped compared to Civ 2 and Civ 4. The same problem exists for many other Civ 3 foot units. That problem even got worse with the not working routine of land artillery in Civ 3 (now somewhat fixed by the mod C3X).

I recognized this problem many years ago when creating the mod CCM and therefore orientated the attack values in my CCM mods for C3C on the settings of Civ 2. Per example the rifleman in CCM has an attack value of 7 and a defense value of 7. As you are asking for mods, you can find the newest version of this mod CCM 3 here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ccm3-epic-mod.690497/

CCM 3 has several other features to make combat in C3C much more tactical and interesting.

 

[Fergei]

Is this an automated attack function for the stack?

Yes, but use with caution! I don't think you can cancel it, whereas if you attack manually and the first few attacks go badly, you might want to retreat and regroup.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Yes, but use with caution! I don't think you can cancel it, whereas if you attack manually and the first few attacks go badly, you might want to retreat and regroup.

Oh, I probably won't use it all (except maybe after a save to test it) ... that seems, for the reason you state, almost as bad as automating workers.

 

[justanick]

In Civ 3 for a rifleman you have a base value in attack of 3 and in defense of 6,

The attack value is 4. Using them for attack is far from ideal as you can have two MedInf with attack 4 for those 80 shields.

If wars are too tedious, the map is simply too large.

 

[Civinator]

The attack value is 4.

As I play since more than two decades with improved combat values for Civ 3 units, I took the value for the rifleman of 3A 6D from the Civ 3 manual, page 204. If this value later was increased to 4A 6D doesn´t change anything in the problem, that the riflemen (and many other foot units) have a massive handicap in their attacks compared to Civ 2 and Civ 4.

Spoiler :

 

[tjs282]

IIRC, the Rifleman was already 4.6.1 even in Vanilla v1.07. But yes, that still leaves it pretty useless for attacking (even though it also has the "Offensive" AI-strat!)

Yes, but use with caution! I don't think you can cancel it, whereas if you attack manually and the first few attacks go badly, you might want to retreat and regroup.

No, a stack-attack can't be cancelled once initiated.

Also, the game will usually stack-attack using the 'strongest' units first (e.g. advanced units before obsolete units; and Elites before Vets before Regs), whereas a player MM-ing their battles might prefer to do it the other way round, sending in their 'cannon-fodder' first and saving their Elites for mopping-up/ Leader-fishing.

Even if a stack-attack is successful, it will also end with all (activated) units which still have movement remaining, moving into the conquered town -- potentially (especially prior to Rails) wasting movement points that might have been better spent going in another direction -- or worse, possibly leaving any already-fired bombard-units completely unguarded.

So if a player really wanted to use this mechanic, it may be worth fortifying their entire stack first, then re-activating it in "squads" of 3-5 units at a time -- rather than sending everything in at once.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I've been playing Civilization III lately. While it's not my absolute favorite entry in the series in terms of gameplay, I have to say that aesthetically and graphically, it's my favorite title. There's a charm to its visual style that really holds up for me.

That said, I find the combat and warfare mechanics in Civ III to be tedious and just not fun. I can't quite put my finger on why, but compared to Civ II and Civ IV, war in Civ III just feels more like a chore compared to the other titles.

Has anyone else felt the same? Are there any mods or tweaks that make combat and war more enjoyablein Civ III or is it just me that feeld thid way

I haven't played Civ2 in more than a decade, so my memory is fuzzy. Units fortified in cities were super-hard to overcome, even with a lot of tanks. Building units and re-homing them seemed more tedious; I found myself surprised that a productive city was suddenly food-poor due to unit support.

Civ4 warfare has a classic pattern, almost a dance: 1) Bombard a city with some siege 2) Use remaining "suicide catapults" to soften up the city 3) Pound the city with your offensive units until you win. Little mini-decisions for each unit in your attacking stack every turn.

The Civ3 dance is shorter: 1) Bombard with siege 2) Attack with your best "A" value units first, eventually working your way down to your weakest/wounded units.
It's useful to notice if you have redlined defenders, to try attacking with an elite unit to get a leader.

Perhaps it seems tedious due to slower movement? Many Civ3 infantry and siege units can only move once on unroaded terrain, so it feels like slow progress to bring your stack into position.

 

[Theov]

I've been playing Civilization III lately. While it's not my absolute favorite entry in the series in terms of gameplay, I have to say that aesthetically and graphically, it's my favorite title. There's a charm to its visual style that really holds up for me.

That said, I find the combat and warfare mechanics in Civ III to be tedious and just not fun. I can't quite put my finger on why, but compared to Civ II and Civ IV, war in Civ III just feels more like a chore compared to the other titles.

Has anyone else felt the same? Are there any mods or tweaks that make combat and war more enjoyablein Civ III or is it just me that feeld thid way?

If you articulate what the issue is, besides expressing a 'feeling', people might be able to help you.